The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday ordered issue of notice to the State and the city police on a petition filed by a woman, questioning the legality of registration a First Information Report (FIR) against her under a non-existing provision of the Information Technology Act for posting a letter that allegedly contained the forged signature of Home Minister M.B. Patil on her Facebook page.
Justice K. Natarajan passed the order on the petition filed by Sharada D.R alias Sharada Diamond, 32, a software engineer and resident of K.R. Puram.
It has been contended in the petition that Section 66A of the IT Act, under which the FIR was registered against her, was declared as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in its 2015 verdict, and hence this provision of the law does not exist in the law book.
The Srirampura police in the city had on April 25 registered the FIR based on a complaint filed by one J. Saravana, who alleged that the petitioner had on April 16 posted the fake letter on her Facebook page and wrote adverse comments against Mr. Patil to tarnish his image.
It has been alleged in the petition that the Minister and his political aides are mounting “extreme pressure” on the police to arrest the petitioner on some pretext or the other.
